BP125
Lauren is a 32-year-old married woman with three children. Her father (Josh) left her mother (Leah) and the couple’s four kids for another woman when Lauren was seven. The departure seemed sudden to Lauren and threw her into deep anxiety and depression. However, the marriage blowup had been building for years due to Leah’s critical spirit toward her husband and Josh’s poor communication skills, namely, a total lack of assertiveness.
The Curse of Moving Against and Moving Away from
Being critical was Leah’s knee-jerk reaction when she felt unloved, and running was much easier for Josh than working on the marriage. Staying and hearing what his wife was really saying behind her negativity would have meant conflict and would have required Josh to develop mature coping skills.
So, the marriage was doomed from the beginning because neither Lauren’s mother or father were willing to grow out of their immature coping skills. Criticism comes very naturally to women who feel unloved and running comes very naturally to men who feel disrespected.
Complicating it all was that Lauren’s grandmother had felt unloved by her husband and had been very critical of her “selfish” and “lazy” spouse. Grandpa coped by pulling away from his wife and instead moving toward the local bar on the way home from work every day. Of course, grandfather’s coping skill of avoidance only fueled grandmother’s sense of being unloved and even abandoned. More criticism followed. Then more running. Criticism. Running.
Sadly, Lauren grew up to carry on the family tradition. She quickly grew critical of her passive husband, Matt, when he did not love her as she thought he should. Matt had his issues, yes. He was a bit selfish and could be irritable around his wife and kids whenever he felt stressed at work. He would also unwind by retreating to the family room to watch movies and listen to music. In fact, retreating was his primary coping skill.
He learned this deficient coping skill from his father who would retreat to the basement whenever he felt criticized by his wife. Instead of facing her and raising the tension (heaven forbid!), he retired to the basement and worked on his model trains.
Lauren viewed this unwinding as unplugging from the family. It felt unloving and abandoning. In many ways, it was. So, she criticized, and Matt ran more to his trains.
Matt had a responsible job that paid him 125K a year. He went to church and did his best to pursue a relationship with Jesus. He didn’t drink and he wasn’t addicted to porn although he did view it occasionally whenever he was alone after running away from his critical wife. He loved his kids and did his best to spend time with them.
Unfortunately, Lauren was quick to see Matt’s shortcomings, not his strengths. Eventually, she became so disillusioned with her husband that all she could see were the negatives. She was not shy about pointing them out to Matt.
The more Lauren criticized, the more Matt unplugged from her and the kids. The more he unplugged and ran away, the more unloved Lauren felt. The intergenerational pattern continued.
A terrible family legacy was reenacted by both Lauren and Matt. History was repeated—yet again. For over a century, both Lauren’s and Matt’s families practiced the same dynamics in their marriage: Feel unloved and criticize. Feel disrespected and run. Eventually view the other person as the problem and divorce emotionally and then legally.
The Psychological Ingredients of Cleaving and then Leaving
So, what are Lauren and Matt doing here? Are they engaging in some psychological dynamic such as repetition compulsion? Repetition compulsion is a fixed unconscious tendency that compels an individual to repeat familiar painful actions or relational patterns.
In Lauren’s case, she may be repeating the habit of correcting and controlling her husband in the hope of making him into the type of man who will never disappoint her or leave her like her father did. Sadly, these very actions by Lauren trigger Matt’s desire to run away from the criticism of his wife.
It is possible that Lauren and Matt repeat their compulsions since these behavioral patterns are familiar and therefore comfortable for them in some unhealthy way?
They may also be repeated to finally resolve a deeply hidden fear or problem.
Lauren may be so afraid of abandonment that the only way she thinks she can keep Matt in the marriage is to control him; possibly even to reduce him to a passive castrated Zombie husband who will limp around in a daze and never leave her because he has no confidence.
Or could it be that Matt and Lauren are simply practicing transference–carrying over into their marriage unresolved emotional issues from previous relationships in their lives? As we know, unfinished business from the past always rolls forward to the next relationship. Marriage is the relationship above all others where all past baggage is opened.
Whatever the dynamics may be here—even projection or displacement—this marriage will fail as previous marriages have failed in the family histories of both Lauren and Matt.
If the repetition, reenactment, transference, projection, or displacement has been practiced since childhood—if it is accompanied by strong anger and even bitterness–it may be highly entrenched and qualify as a personality disorder such as Borderline or Narcissistic or Avoidant.
So, what can they do?
Lauren is moving against Matt and Matt is moving away from Lauren. How will they ever meet in the middle and work out their problematic marriage?
Trust Jesus and Take Pressure Off Your Spouse or Friend
The answer seems easy: don’t repeat the past. Don’t do what previous generations did. Stop being critical and stop running away.
Saying it is a lot easier than doing it.
What is the solution, then?
The bottom-line truth here is that if you trust Jesus to love you, take care of you, and never leave you, then you won’t put so much pressure on your husband to be the exact man you need him to be to calm your anxiety. You won’t run away from your wife because you’re more concerned about protecting yourself than understanding the cry of her heart.
There are some who will say that you are over-spiritualizing things if you believe what I just wrote. It can’t be as simple as trusting that Jesus will take care of you.
But it is. It is that simple.
But trusting Jesus is the journey of a lifetime. We don’t trust overnight or after a month or even after five years. Trust is learned through repeated experiences where God shows up and is with you—even in the storm. Especially in the storm. Trust grows as you seek Him with all your heart day in and day out. Maybe not perfectly, but certainly with an increasing desire to be in His presence.
In the tragic case of Lauren and Matt, Lauren could not let go of her criticism and anger that flowed out of her need to make Matt into the man she needed him to be. She did not pray that the Holy Spirit would grow Matt. She only trusted herself to somehow shape her husband into the right kind of man through her control, nagging, and negativity. (Run, Matt, run.)
Matt eventually left Lauren because she could never look inside. It was always Matt who was the problem and had to be fixed. History was repeated. Of course, Matt never communicated well–he always (yes, always) moved away from Lauren instead of raising the tension, enduring the conflict, and learning to love his fearful wife. History was repeated.
The Take-Away
What is the take-away today? Grow in your trust of God and His promises because if you don’t, you will put too much pressure on human relationships to resolve your fear and anxiety. Never expect from a man or woman what only God Himself can do, namely, love you perfectly and grow you into a man of God who is confident because of grace and mercy.
So, abandon control and criticism because they are both tools of distrust. Forsake running and resentment because they will imprison your heart in a vault.
Rather, run to the Father and He will love you with a love you can then pass on to others.
Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God ~ Psalm 20:7
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen ~ Romans 8:24
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us ~ I John 4:7ff